Merchants generally determine which products to offer for sale in their stores, how to present those products to customers, and what a reasonable retail price is for those products. With these decisions, merchants seek to drive higher sales of profit-making retail products and/or to efficiently reduce distressed inventory. Product placement refers to decisions associated with the display of goods within the store, typically to promote sales and/or maximize profit for the merchant (via, e.g., reduced inventory costs). Merchants often utilize displays, showcases, backdrops, lighting effects, etc. in product placement to attract the attention of shoppers to their products. Merchants may also desire to identify the key demographics of consumers who are likely to purchase a product so that they may quickly attract such customers to their product displays, thereby increasing profitability through a quick sale.
Currently, merchants lack customized information regarding the in-store behaviors of their customers or the ability to utilize such information in making decisions (such as, for example, which products to offer for sale, how to present those products to customers, at what retail price to list those products, etc.). Nor do merchants have access to empirical data on the key consumer demographics for consumers visiting their stores, and how those demographics relate to the products that merchants have on display in their stores. Thus, a need exists for systems and methods for product placement optimization.